Los Hermanos
Background Until he reached elementary school, Carlos Verdecia simply assumed that everyone had three names. It was, after all, how things worked in his family. Sometimes his mother called him "Antonio", and his father sometimes played catch with "Alejandro", and occasionally he would overhear one of his parents referring to him as "the triplets". He never knew any other situation, so he never knew anything was odd about it. In elementary school, however, he discovered that the other children only had the one body. It came as a great surprise. He had joined a group of children playing baseball when it happened. Carlos was playing shortstop, catcher, and left field. The boy in right field chased a long ball a little too far and had run full tilt into the concrete wall at the back of the field. When Carlos found out that the boy had knocked himself cold, he quite innocently inquired why the injured boy didn’t just create a new body for himself until this one woke up. The look he received in return told the story. No one else had more than one body, or could create more on demand. He went home to address the subject to his parents. They would know, because they knew everything. It took his father, a detective with the Provincial Police, an hour to figure out just what his son was asking, and another hour to discover that their "triplets" were, in fact, an only child. As the son of a provincial detective, Carlos wanted for nothing that Costa Rica could offer. Sun, beaches, playmates… he never wanted of playmates, after all. When he grew up, he too became a police officer. It was all he wanted to do since he was a child, and he was determined to be the best cop he could. It was his father’s idea to become a Guardian, at least originally. For his entire life, Carlos never gave a thought to the fact that he was special. All he knew was that he was never alone. But his father put it in perspective: there were things that Carlos could handle that an average police officer couldn’t, and there were things that Carlos couldn’t handle on his own. For those latter things, he needed a new police brotherhood beside him, and the only ones who fit the bill were the Guardians. His father respected the Guardians. He respected their efforts, and their honor, and their tradition. His son had a place among him, and it would be a moment of pride to see Carlos become a Guardian. Thinking about it, Carlos decided that he liked the idea. He could help in ways that an ordinary policeman couldn’t. His father was right. The Guardians were going to be his new brotherhood. It should be noted that officially he is still a member of the Provincial Police (not to mention a merchant marine sailor, a Roman Catholic priest, a high school teacher, and several other occupations currently held by some of his other selves). However, he’s been listed on the rolls of that organization as on permanent liaison duty with the Guardians. Carlos is happily married to Veronica Sanchez, an actress and fellow Costa Rican, who (while wierded out by the situation) understands that the Provincial detective she loves and has children with is the same person as the big-time hero she occasionally sees on the television, even when that same person is sitting next to her watching as well. Personality and Motivations Carlos looks at the world from a different perspective than other people. To him, being in multple places at once and doing multiple things at once is as normal as breathing. There is no sense of separation between his various selves... no need to identify the original person from the copies. Indeed, Carlos has long since lost track of which one was the original body. He doesn’t care much. This sense of wholeness had lead to a total lack of worry regarding his duplicates and himself. The bodies can be shed with all the worry of a person getting their hair cut. While this can take some getting used to by his friends, Carlos never understands why they might get upset if one of his "spares" is killed in the line of duty (something that happened twice during his time as a police officer). He always leaves a duplicate or two behind at home when he is going into a dangerous situation, just in case. Quote "Yes, ma’am… I am sure it was difficult for our mother to tell us apart." Powers and Abilities Los Hermanos is a mutant with the power to duplicate himself in almost uncountable numbers. Each duplicate is identical to the original in every way. Los Hermanos himself (themselves?) do not know how many duplicates he (they?) could create if they really tried, though they always wanted to find out eventually. He once tried to find out and stopped after nearly six thousand duplicates... he got too bored to create any more. The duplicates can easily communicate with each other through a simple telepathy. This telepathy also makes them jointly vulnerable to mental attacks, once a telepath gets past the complex functioning of his multipresent consciousness. Because he's spent his life as numerous people simultaneously, Los Hermanos is widely knowledgeable and highly skilled. It sometimes seems as if he was born competent at anything he tries to do. As such, he's an expert at infiltration and a wizard at hand-to-hand combat, a trained police officer, an ordained Catholic priest, and a half a dozen other occupations. He can cook like a chef, repair cars like an expert mechanic, rewire a stereo, and program a computer. Anything any of his duplicates know, he knows, and thus he knows nearly everything about anything... Appearance Carlos Verdecia is a light-skinned Hispanic man of medium height and build. His sandy blonde hair and dark brown eyes are handsome, but not striking. He has no obvious identifying marks or scars, though he does have a tattoo of his Provincial badge on his right shoulder (a tattoo that duplicates along with the rest of his body). When dressed for superhero work, Carlos wears a set of body armor that is mostly black, with a dark blue (almost purple) torso. He wears no mask. While off duty, Carlos wears whatever outfit is appropriate to the situation… or situations, as the case may be. Category:Characters Category:Costa Rican Characters Category:Costa Rican Heroes Category:Metamorphs Category:Heroes Category:Male Characters Category:Male Heroes